WASHINGTON (CNN) --Incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott issued a written apology Monday evening over his comment that the United States would have avoided "all these problems" if then-segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948.

"A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past," Lott said. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."

Lott, R-Mississippi, made the comment Thursday on Capitol Hill during a 100th birthday celebration for Thurmond, who is retiring next month after nearly 48 years in the Senate. The comment was broadcast live on C-SPAN.

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either," Lott said at last week's party.

Thurmond ran as the presidential nominee of the breakaway Dixiecrat Party in the 1948 presidential race against Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Thomas Dewey. He carried Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and his home state of South Carolina, of which he was governor at the time.

During the campaign, he said, "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches."

Thurmond's party ran under a platform that declared in part, "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."

Thurmond eventually moved away from his segregationist position and went on to the longest career in Senate history. Now a Republican representing South Carolina, he is retiring from the Senate when his term ends in January.

Gore: Lott should apologize for his comments or face censure by the Senate.

Earlier Monday, Lott issued a statement, saying, "My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life."

But some Democrats were angry. Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson called for Lott to resign, and former Vice President Al Gore told CNN that the comment was "racist."

Issuing one of the harshest rebukes Lott has received to date, even from Democrats, Gore said Monday in an interview on CNN's "Inside Politics" that Lott should apologize for his comments or face censure by the Senate.

Lott, who will resume his duties as Senate majority leader when the 108th Congress convenes next month, issued a two-sentence statement Monday defending the remark. The statement did not explain what he meant by "all these problems."

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said Monday he believes Lott did not intend for his comments to be interpreted as racist.

"There are a lot of times when he and I go to the mike and would like to say things we meant to say differently, and I'm sure this is one of those cases for him as well," Daschle said.

Gore offered no criticism of Thurmond, saying the retiring senator has since "repudiated" those views. But he said Lott's remarks were "divisive" and fit the "definition of a racist comment."

A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past ... Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement.

-- Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott

"To say that the problems that we have in America today, some of them, stem from not electing a segregationist candidate for president ... is fundamentally racist," Gore said.

Asked if he believes Lott is a racist, Gore said, "Trent Lott made a statement that I think is a racist statement, yes. That's why I think he should withdraw those comments or I think the United States Senate should undertake a censure of those comments.

"It is not a small thing ... for one of the half dozen most prominent political leaders in America to say that our problems are caused by integration and that we should have had a segregationist candidate. That is divisive and it is divisive along racial lines. That's the definition of a racist comment," Gore said.

During the CNN interview, Gore also said he will decide later this month whether to run for president in 2004 and will announce his decision early next year.